This invention relates to a composite electrical connector and to a method of loading it with electrical leads.
There is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,114, an electrical connector comprising an elongate insulating housing defining a row of cavities each opening into a lead receiving face of the housing and each receiving an electrical terminal having a lead receiving portion arranged to be loaded with an electrical lead inserted into the cavity by way of the lead receiving face.
There is also described in the patent specification mentioned above a harness making apparatus for loading such connectors with leads. In this known apparatus, and in others for the mass production of electrical harnesses, the connectors are advanced lengthwise through a lead insertion station, to which for reasons of mechanical convenience in the construction of the apparatus, the leads are all presented from one side of insertion station. Such apparatus are therefore only capable of loading electrical connectors having a single row of terminals, the leads that have been loaded into the lead receiving portions of the terminals all projecting from the same side of the connectors.
There is, nevertheless, now a demand, for example, for mating with certain kinds of automotive switches, for two row electrical connectors, that is to say connectors having two juxtaposed rows of electrical terminals, and which have been loaded with leads, the leads which have been loaded into the wire receiving portions of the terminals of one row projecting in the opposite direction to those that have been loaded into the wire receiving portions of the terminals of the other row.